Anna’s life is the story away from complementary relationship, out-of « caring for the sloppy, » in which it is mainly Anna who does the new compassionate , and she will it towards complete spectrum of meaning regarding official service so you’re able to charity to relationship
One to Anna’s emotional engagement is actually an error is actually in the future produced away by the sour basic facts this lady has already anticipated: their own most readily useful matchmaking are betrayed to help you men, « a separate doctor you to Mrs. Lehntman know » (56).
Shonjen’s home try threatened because of the a woman whom the guy intentions to get married. Unfortunately but resolutely, Anna quits the house today influenced because of the usurper off her home-based power.
Anna today takes up the position that have Miss Mathilda, taking care of yet another lackadaisical spinster: « Therefore Anna began a new lifestyle caring for [. ] sloppy Skip Mathilda. » (61) These represent the happiest several years of the great Anna’s lifestyle. She can laws and scold if you are meanwhile valuing and you will admiring their unique rich and highly experienced mistress:
Yes, taking good care of Skip Mathilda was basically the fresh happiest days of all the good Anna’s solid hard-working lives. (63)
Anna’s psychological link to Miss Mathilda nonetheless remains unsymmetrical – eclipsed by working matchmaking, forced not as much as and never publicly conveyed – though it does include their unique in the cruel frustration of their particular love which have Mrs. Lehntman. The definition of « romance » is actually superceded because of the « pleased family. » The story today settles with the fairy-tale domestic idyll discussed from the first, that have Skip Mathilda, Anna therefore the stray pet under their unique costs, her « children »: « Sally and you can dated Baby and you can young Peter additionally the jolly nothing Towels. »(68)
Skip Mathilda wasn’t a romance about a great Anna’s life, but Anna offered her plenty strong passion this almost occupied her lives just like the complete. (64) [. ] It was an incredibly delighted family indeed there as a whole regarding kitchen area [. ]. (68)
Around can just only stick to the anticlimax of Anna’s joy, started whenever Skip Mathilda resumes their unique nomadic life style – « Skip Mathilda obtained so you can much drifting and frequently altered their unique home » (75) – , a scenario mentioned at their unique interview five years prior to but next repressed and you may lost when you look at the Anna’s quotidian contentment.
The next part wants new ending in its identity: « Brand new Loss of A good Anna » (77). Anna’s last decades try described as good suicidal detachment of existence. Having been remaining in charge of Miss Mathilda’s domestic and vaguely hoping for their unique go back, Anna briefly rents the newest freshly vacated bed room to lodgers which she normally scold and you will order from the when you look at the regular manner. Nevertheless great emptiness in her own psychological lifestyle results in bodily warning signs of business-weariness and you can dejection. Once more Anna becomes ill and must keeps an operation. Some body, at least, is by using their particular when she becomes deceased: Mrs. Drehten, a buddy having whom she got always mutual Weltschmerz of one another a broad and you can kind of type and who had been today herself distress away from a cyst. Mrs. Drehten’s letter to miss Mathilda shuts that have Anna’s history message so you can lifestyle – and to Skip Mathilda.
Anna’s enjoy to miss Mathilda converts the latest meanings of verbal hide « care » clearly on the that which remains unexpressed and you will unfulfilled, but nevertheless her biggest wish: « like, » virtually Anna’s final utterance ahead of their own passing and you will up until the last word-of the text – « FINIS
« Caring for the fresh sloppy » appears to be the fresh new uninsidious role development that renders the newest taboo homosexual thinking between female you can, or in other words much more suggestively than explicitly portrayable.sixteen The fact that Anna’s facts ends in sadness and you can death, in the event she read getting flexible during the playing her role, makes the person hot Setubal in Portugal girls unsatisfied. The new break up stays mysteriously inexplicable, especially given that Mathilda’s penchant to have « wandering » is created clear at the really beginning. New fairy-tale residential idyll, an ideally pleased disease for them each other, however do not cause Miss Mathilda to repay off, and you may Anna is not necessarily the only 1 whom finds it inexplicable. This course out of events suggests the top question: Who’s that it mysticized, blissfully husbandless, nameless, « highest and you can lazy, » « higher and you can careless mistress » « Miss Mathilda » (21 f.), « [who] received so you can far drifting » (75)? For the moment let’s get-off practical question discover, once the really does the words.